The King presided over the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Elcano Royal Institute on Monday, which was attended by the four living former presidents of the Government from the democratic period: Felipe González, José María Aznar, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy.
The meeting was held at the El Pardo Palace and was also attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares; the head of Defense, Margarita Robles, and the Minister of Culture and Sports, Miquel Iceta.
The coincidence of the four former presidents has allowed us to see at the beginning of the meeting conversations between the two former heads of the Socialist Executive, González and Zapatero (located to the right of the king both in the family photo and in the meeting), on the one hand, and the two from the Popular Party, Aznar and Rajoy (located to his left), on the other.
The latter have also shared with the former minister and former general secretary of their political formation, María Dolores de Cospedal, vice president of the Elcano Institute.
In the meeting chaired by Felipe VI, who greeted each and every one of the members of the Board of Trustees present at the beginning of the meeting, the annual accounts of the Institute were approved, which in 2022 obtained a surplus of 337,000 euros.
The president of the Institute, José Juan Ruiz, and its director, Charles Powell, have presented their corresponding reports and the activity report has also been approved. There were 50 public events organized last year and 312 documents published on the issues of its ten lines of research.
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The document entitled “Why Latin America Matters” was presented at the meeting, which contrasts the visions that present this region as economically unsuccessful and politically unstable with what it considers to be reality, since it interprets that these perceptions are strongly biased by presumptions and prejudices.
Likewise, it reviews the challenges of the Spanish presidency of the European Union and the opportunity it represents to strengthen relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. Among his proposals is the creation of an EU-Latin America Trade and Technology Council similar to the one the European Union already has with the United States and India to promote dialogue and coordinate joint actions on issues such as energy, food and water security, supply chains, migration and transnational terrorism.
Among the almost forty attendees at the meeting of the Board of Trustees were the governor of the Banco de España, Pablo Hernández de Cos; the presidents of Banco de Santander, Ana Botín; Caixabank, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri; Repsol, Antonio Brufau; and Iberdrola, Ignacio Sánchez Galán; and the CEOs of Inditex, Óscar García; and Endesa, José Bogas.
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